The overarching goal of the Duke Climate Action Plan is to achieve carbon neutrality by 2024.
On a fundamental level, the idea here is to make operations as efficient as possible. Loyal readers will recall from previous columns some of the mechanisms and policy changes outlined in the CAP that aim to reduce the University’s carbon footprint. Some of the changes, like the East Campus Steam Plant and temperature standards in campus buildings have been implemented. Others are under consideration.
Increasing efficiency however, will never get us to zero.
The University does not intend to sacrifice its core mission, to educate and conduct high level research—to develop “knowledge in the service of society.” But, to enable this mission, the University provides, as an example, buildings with classrooms, labs and offices in which to learn and conduct experiments and dorms for students to live in. It employs faculty and staff, most of whom commute and create emissions.
This physical, built environment, occupied by faculty, staff and students, will continue to generate a carbon footprint, even at its most efficient, in no small part because the energy used to power it is not itself neutral. And it won’t be for some time to come, but most importantly for Duke, it will not be neutral by 2024.
How then, do we plan to keep both commitments?
This is where offsets come into the picture. If you don’t understand offsets, you’re not alone.
To help me get a handle on things, I sat down with Tanja Vujic, director of the Duke Carbon Offsets Initiative. It’s best to start in the context of a cap and trade system, where everything makes a little more sense, she told me. At the outset, everyone gets some number of allowances to emit a set amount of carbon or whatever pollutant is being regulated.
Over time, the total number of allowances, and therefore the total amount of carbon emitted, is lowered through some regulatory structure. The how then plays out according to market principles as entities that can make reductions do so more cheaply than entities that find it more economical to buy up and hold more allowances.
The Acid Rain Program remains the shining example of a successful cap and trade program in the U.S. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency initiated the program in 1995 in an effort to regulate acid rain causing pollutants. Sulfur dioxide, one of the regulated pollutants had achieved 56 percent reductions in yearly emissions in 2008 compared to 1980 levels, according to the U.S. EPA Web site.
In the real world, only parts of the economy might be regulated by a particular cap and trade system or tax. This leaves sectors of the economy outside the system, essentially uncapped. Vujic explained it to me this way: “Take the agricultural sector, for instance, who’s uncapped, not motivated to make any reductions, not regulated to make any reductions, but get the capped sectors to come over and say ‘we’ll pay you to do these projects, to get the greenhouse gas emissions reductions – we get the credit for it, you do the project.’ That’s basically what an offset is; you’re having someone doing an offset for you.”
This is where the accounting part comes in. In the present day, it is impossible for the entire economy to be neutral, so someone has to decide who counts what. In this case, Duke—like other U.S. companies and colleges—has self-selected to become neutral. With President Richard Brodhead’s signing of the climate commitment, Duke also committed to a system that specifies what Duke is responsible for including in the total—like employee commuter emissions, for example, but not necessarily how to measure or add it all up.
So now here is Duke up against another question of credibility if it decides to generate its own offsets, forgoing purchase from an established market. Granted Duke has academic capital to lean on in making and justifying decisions, but we only have to look back to U.S. EPA’s experience running cap and trade programs to find advice on the perception question. According to U.S. EPA’s Web site, one of the key lessons learned is that “accountability and transparency are keys to program success and acceptance.”
In terms of green house gases, the U.S. does not yet have legislation in place to regulate the market, price, or quality of carbon offsets.
So, what is the value of Duke investing in this amorphous, unregulated world, I wondered?
“It’s really good citizenship,” Vujic told me.
More specifically, the CAP tasks the Carbon Offsets Initiative to pursue a portfolio of projects that balances “credibility and measurability; cost; community and environmental co-benefits; links to education, research, and service (especially in environment, engineering, business, policy and law); and mitigation of risk through a diversity of project types, suppliers and locations.”
Based on my understanding, I would say there’s a great deal of opportunity to practice that good citizenship. But, administrative leaders I spoke with are confident leveraging the many facets of Duke should make for success, setting Duke up to be a leader in the rigorous shaping of the offsets standards and market of the future.
Since the Carbon Offsets Initiative is so young, less than a full year old, it’s impossible to evaluate, though they’re off to a good start—the first carbon capture project is scheduled to break ground within the month. Neutrality is still a long way off; the Initiative is closer to banking its first offset. When that credit does get banked, I hope to be back, telling you all about it in Green Accounting 102.
Liz Bloomhardt is a graduate student in mechanical engineering. Her column runs every other Thursday and today as an online exclusive.
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